Lament
by unfold
Summary: One shot. Jess' thoughts and interaction with Lorelai [and a little Luke] after Rory's funeral. Reviews are fantastic, always.


**A/N: This...I mean, I know why I originally wanted to write this but then it became something different. At first, I felt like a confrontation between Jess and Lorelai needed to be done and I was thinking of all the reasons why he would possibly be alone to talk to Lorelai and the thought of Rory being dead popped into my mind. But, then I started writing this and it became something different. I mean, this isn't really the confrontation I had in mind. But, this is how it happened. I know. I don't like her being dead either. I'll probably end up rewriting this in an entirely different way eventually. This is a depressing story. Consider yourself warned. **

I was drunk after the funeral. Drunk because I didn't know what else to do. I didn't know how to deal with this. I never knew how to deal with anything. I would normally run but I was different now. I was trying to be different, trying to change. And drinking was the only thing that had stopped the sobbing. Nothing in the past four days had worked until this.

Then I remembered and threw the bottle to the ground. As I cleaned up the mess, I was muttering to myself, "Fucking drunk fucking driver." And I picked up the glass with my bare hands.

It hurt for so many reasons. (Her death not the glass, I couldn't feel a fucking thing on the outside.) Because she hated me and I never got the chance to make that right. Because I had been so sure we would find each other again. Because I had been waiting for her for the past three years. Because I was so damn sure that this would all work itself out. I would come back new and improved and she would love me for it. We would be together. That's what I'd been telling myself for years. It hurt because she was the purest person I had ever known and she didn't deserve this. It hurt because she was small and fragile and broken and it was an open casket funeral. It hurt because so many people loved her and none of them deserved this either. It hurt because she was on her way to her mother's baby shower. It hurt because she was gone. For good. And there was no chance for me to tell her everything I never told her.

I sat in the empty apartment with blood on my hands for hours. I was waiting for something but I don't know what. Waiting for my palms to start aching the way they should be. Waiting for the blood to dry.

Of course he would bring her here. Where else would he take her? Not back to that house. Not after everything. I heard them on the stairs and was immediately terrified. I stood up and then didn't know where to go or what to do so I waited for the door to open.

She was standing and this surprised me. If I could barely keep myself together, how was she able to stand on her own two feet? Her face was swollen, red. She was clinging to Luke and he was trying in vain to calm her down. The noises coming from her mouth were frightening and I wanted to disappear. I didn't want to see this. I shouldn't have been there.

They saw me and stopped, staring at me. There was blood on my shirt in addition to on my hands.

"Jess, what's going on?" He was tired and I could see it in his eyes. He was exhausted because he had to be the strong one throughout all of this. With me being unstable and Lorelai being close to dying, he had to keep himself together. And now was clearly not the time to be standing in the middle of the apartment covered in my own blood.

"I broke a bottle." My own voice scared me. It was different. Vulnerable in a way I had never known. I sounded almost like a child.

"Why is there blood all over you?" He sat Lorelai in the chair next to the couch where she was watching me.

"I picked up the glass. I made a mess. Had to clean it up."

He was shaking his head as he sat down next to Lorelai. He put his head in his hands and breathed out loudly. "I can't do this." And he was gone like the rest of us, crying silently. He stood up suddenly and walked to the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

That left me alone with Lorelai and my hands were shaking. She wasn't crying anymore and she wasn't making noises. She was just staring at the wall with her hands in her lap.

"I'm…sorry." And the last word fell almost silently, barely spoken because it was a stupid thing to say. I hated that that was all I could think to say to her. There was so much more turning inside of me. But she looked at me then with a soft smile on her face.

"She…she." She stopped, as if she didn't know what she had planned on saying.

"I was waiting for her. God, that's stupid. It's stupid, right? That I had been waiting for her. That I thought she might actually come back to me. That she'd ever want me again. After what I did. God, I didn't deserve anything. Nothing. She. . .she was." My voice broke as a sob overtook my entire body. "I left. I abandoned her. Because I was letting her down. Fuck, this hurts. But, you know that. You know this hurts. I never knew you could hurt like this. That a person was capable of feeling so much pain without dying. I always thought she'd be with me eventually. I had no one else. I…"

I didn't know why I was saying all of this to her mother. But, it was coming out of my mouth before I could even think about it. It was incoherent and ridiculous but she was looking at me like it meant something.

"Jess…you loved her the best you could."

I sat next to her and felt a warm hand on my back, making gentle circles. And I felt selfish. She shouldn't be comforting me, she shouldn't be comforting anyone. I whispered through my hands that were covering my face, "You hated me."

"No. I couldn't hate you. Not when she loved you so much."

And we were silent, both of us breathing in and out, her hand still resting on my back. I almost felt content for a moment. Like she must've felt when her mother comforted her. Luke emerged from the bathroom with red eyes and walked over to us, sitting on the other side of me.

And for the first time in years, I felt loved. And for the first time in days, I didn't feel like dying. And as we sat there I felt her presence, like she had never left. And Lorelai's bulging stomach made my heart less heavy. And at the time I thought it was strange but looking back it made perfect sense for me to be thinking that if I stayed here for a while, this could easily be home.


End file.
